Order to Suspend Habeas Corpus, July 2, 1861

• title = Order authorizing General Scott to Suspend the Writ of Habeas Corpus
• author = Abraham Lincoln
• notes = Order authorizing General Scott to Suspend the Writ of Habeas Corpus, Issued: 2 July 1861, ( Abraham Lincoln: Complete Works, Comprising His Speeches, Letters, State Papers, and Miscellaneous Writings, ed. John G. Nicolay and John Hay, vol. II (New York: The Century Co., 1894), 54. )
  Authorizes Gen. Scott to suspend habeas corpus between New York and Washington, D.C., during the Civil War.

To the Commanding General, Army of the United States.

You are engaged in suppressing an insurrection against the laws of the United States. If at any point on or in the vicinity of the military line which is now or which shall be used between the city of New York and the city of Washington you find resistance which renders it necessary to suspend the writ of habeas corpus for the public safety, your personally, or through the officer in command at the point where resistance occurs, are authorized to suspend that writ.

Given under my hand and the seal of the United States at the city of Washington, this second day of July, a.d. 1861, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-fifth.

Abraham Lincoln

By the President: ⁠ William H. Seward, Secretary of State.

Notes

See Related:

• Order to Suspend Habeas Corpus, April 27, 1861
• Ex parte Merryman, May 28, 1861
• Amnesty to Political or State Prisoners, February 14, 1862